1. Find out what the candidates and parties
propose to do on these three issues.
2. Vote for the best environmental outcome.

Broadscale Tree Clearing
When the LNP came to power with Campbell Newman as Premier in
2012, tree clearing controls were greatly relaxed. Clearing
rates sky-rocketed. Queenslanders are now clearing
about 250,000 hectares per year. Most of what is yet to be
cleared is the more marginal country. Land clearing is the
biggest single contributor to species extinction, for which we have the
worst record in the world.

Rookwood Weir on the Fitzroy River. Political
grandstanding has reached fever pitch during the election campaign.
Ridiculously exaggerated claims have been made by proponents on the
number of jobs that it will provide and the supposed farming potential
from irrigation. Facts are: (a) Another weir will increase the risk of
toxic blue-green algae. (b) The Critically Endangered White-throated
Snapping Turtle as well as the Vulnerable Fitzroy River Turtle will
lose a huge
length of river habitat, threatening their survival. (c) 95% of soils
in
the 'irrigated' area are unsuitable for cropping (d) The long-term
'yield' of the river has been determined by DNRM after detailed study.
Building another
weir will not increase this yield. (e) There is
already an unused allocation of 40,000 Ml. (f) There is no such thing
as 'drought-proofing'. (g) It will have no affect on flooding of
Rockhampton. (h) If the weir is funded by private investors,
irrigators would not be able to afford the cost of water; If the weir
is funded by govt., irrigators would be getting a huge cross subsidy
from the taxpayer. (i) Claims of 2000 jobs and $1billion increase in agricultural
production are pure fiction.

Adani’s Carmichael Mineis
the cause of unseemly scrambling between Townsville, Mackay and
Rockhampton Regions over a slice of an ‘Eldorado of black
gold’. Will the Black Throated Finch become a 21st century
‘canary’ fore-telling the demise of thermal coal? Will
ancient springs and the Carmichael River along with threatened plants
like Waxy Cabbage Palms be sacrificed for a project many economists
fear will fail to ever achieve profitability? Carmichael is just one of
six mega mines proposed for the Galilee Basin. Given the situation of
the existing higher grade Bowen basin coal fields you’d have to
be a brave or foolhardy investor to hope Carmichael will be the
solution to our regions’ economies.